


nonagenarian

by rincewitch



Series: Warrior of Moonlight [5]
Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: FFxivWrite2020, Gen, Sharlayan (Final Fantasy XIV), Tumblr: FFXIVwrite2020, cw: parental neglect i guess???
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-08
Updated: 2020-09-08
Packaged: 2021-03-06 14:54:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 868
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26360731
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rincewitch/pseuds/rincewitch
Summary: ffxiv write 2020 day 7: nonagenarianMatoya was, emphatically, not expecting any visitors to intrude upon her sanctum. One would think that, at her age, with her long list of scholarly accomplishments, after giving so much of her life over to the advancement of aetherology, she deserved some peace and quiet as she worked.At least for long enough to finish grading her students’ term papers (execrable, as always— somehow even worse than last year’s lot). Her office hours were clearly posted on her door, and even then it was well known that undergraduates who took advantage of them without good reason did so at their peril.So, of course, when she was interrupted by the sound of her door creaking open, it was totally unsurprising.
Relationships: Y'shtola Rhul & Matoya
Series: Warrior of Moonlight [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1905535
Kudos: 17
Collections: #FFxivWrite2020 Final Fantasy 30 Day Writing Challenge, Emet-Selch's Wholesomely Debauched Bookclub FFXIV-Writes 2020 Collection





	nonagenarian

Matoya was, emphatically, not expecting any visitors to intrude upon her sanctum. One would think that, at her age, with her long list of scholarly accomplishments, after giving so much of her life over to the advancement of aetherology, she deserved some peace and quiet as she worked.

At  _ least _ for long enough to finish grading her students’ term papers (execrable, as always— somehow even worse than last year’s lot). Her office hours were  _ clearly  _ posted on her door, and even then it was well known that undergraduates who took advantage of them without good reason did so at their peril.

So, of  _ course _ , when she was interrupted by the sound of her door creaking open, it was totally unsurprising.

When she looked up from her desk to see not one of her students come to beg for some indulgence or other, or an Archon candidate unsubtly trying to remind her of their thesis, but a small miqo’te girl. Couldn’t be older than six or seven summers, she thought, with pale eyes and hair more silver than Matoya’s own, in spite of several decades’ head start. The girl was wearing the fine clothing of the Sharlayan bourgeoisie, but rumpled and slightly dirty, as if she’d been left to her own devices for a day or two.

Matoya gave the girl a baleful look. “What are you doing here?”

“I ran away from home,” the girl said, “Because I read all the books there already.”

Matoya sighed. It was going to be a long day.

***

The girl’s name was Y’shtola Rhul, and the fact that she apparently came from the whirlwind of mutual recrimination, jockeying for status, internecine feuds, and intra-familial intrigues circling around Y’rhul Nunh that laughably called itself “the Y tribe” explained a lot about how and why she’d managed to wander into the Studium’s faculty offices completely on her own. It also explained why it wasn’t until two full days of the girl constantly getting underfoot, getting her fingerprints on all of Matoya’s books, asking extremely rude questions, and just generally making a nuisance of herself had passed that someone had finally come looking for her.

Perjha Laqi— and that was how she introduced herself,  _ “Perjha” _ , with no tribal letter; Matoya wasn’t familiar enough with the vagaries of Seeker of the Sun culture to know if the woman was being insultingly over-familiar, trying to project an image of being cosmopolitan and Sharlayan, or if this was merely yet another front in the Y tribe’s unceasing war against itself— was a tall, elegant woman with pale skin and dark, auburn hair who looked to be in her late thirties. Something about her seemed vaguely familiar; Matoya wondered if she’d been among the sea of students several decades ago who filled the halls of her lectures, year in and year out, or if she just had one of those faces.

“I’m dreadfully sorry for the trouble, Professor…?”

_ “Master _ Matoya.”

“...Professor Matoya. Shtola’s always been a willful little thing, but I can’t  _ imagine  _ what got into her,” said Perjha. “I was worried sick, naturally,” she added, a bit too perfunctorily for Matoya’s taste.

Matoya shrugged. “The girl simply wants for useful occupation.” She glanced over her shoulder, where Y’shtola was still holed up in the corner of her office, reading a grimoire practically as big as she was. She didn’t look up at her mother; instead, her eyes rapidly swept back and forth across the page, as if she was trying to get through as much of the tome as she could before it was taken from her. “The fact she wandered halfway across the city in search of  _ books to read _ shows that Y’shtola needs intellectual stimulation she’s  _ clearly  _ not getting it from whatever insipid lessons the tutor you hired for her is teaching.”

Perjha bristled at this. “I’ll have you know that Mr. Wright’s services came  _ highly  _ recommended.” She folded her arms, and finally deigned to look at her daughter.  _ “Although… _ perhaps she  _ could _ use some extracurricular activities.”

“The Studium offers specialized programs for young learners,” Matoya said.

“What if you took her on as an apprentice?” Perjha interjected, before Matoya could even finish her thought, “She seems to have taken a liking to you. She hardly ever likes  _ anyone.” _

Matoya frowned, giving Perjha a look that would turn someone slightly less oblivious to stone.

“I’ll pay for her room and board, naturally,” Perjha added, wildly misinterpreting Matoya’s silence as mere hesitation.

Matoya was about to explode at the woman— that’s not how  _ anything  _ worked, she wasn’t a bloody  _ babysitter,  _ she  _ had  _ apprentices already and they were all postgraduate students in their twenties and thirties as opposed to small children, etc., etc. But she stopped herself. If the girl’s own mother was  _ that _ desperate to wash her hands of her own daughter at the first opportunitya by sending her away to a vague apprenticeship, Matoya would not have felt very good about returning said daughter to her care.

Besides, she thought, the girl  _ did  _ have potential.

“Fine.”

Matoya did some math in her head— by the time Shtola came of age, she’d be pushing ninety.

Matoya sighed. It was going to be a long decade or two.


End file.
